Denmark: Finding Kierkegaard in Copenhagen

When I was in my twenties I thought I might be, or become, an American Kierkegaard. (Check out the archival photo of me and my buddies on Gettysburg College's commencement day 1971.) I read all of the Danish philosopher’s works that had been translated into English and, on the way to earning a Ph.D. in Religion and Culture, I once wrote an illustrated, thesis-length essay about Kierkegaard’s own Master’s thesis, in a Kierkegaardian style.

I admired the way Soren Kierkegaard (SK) combined religious thought and creative writing, and how he used pseudonyms to explore certain types of lifestyles and to distinguish particular intellectual points of view. Always, his audience was “that solitary individual.” Everything SK wrote was designed to turn people inward, to challenge them to think for themselves, and to help them become nothing less than the individuals they determined to be.

So I was delighted, when Jan and I got to Copenhagen, to learn that its municipal museum has put up an exhibition devoted to Kierkegaard: “Works of Life, Works of Love,” after the title of one of Kierkegaard’s collections of “edifying discourses.” The central piece in this exhibition is the diamond ring that SK had given his fiancée, Regine Olsen. After he terminated their engagement, and the ring was returned, Kierkegaard had the five diamonds fashioned into a cross, which he wore himself, "even unto death."

Soren Kierkegaard decided that he could not—or should not—marry. In part he feared that he would die before he turned 34 (as his mother and five of his siblings did). In part he felt that he was so homely, and melancholic, as to not deserve another’s love. But in larger part, SK determined that the intellectual project he envisioned would require so much effort, and such singularity of focus, that he could not make room in his life for anything, or anyone, else. Kierkegaard’s “authorship” thus became the cross for which, and on which, this remarkable individual suffered and died (at age 42, not 32)—for love, of a very particular (though, perhaps, a very peculiar) sort.

As I stood beside Kierkegaard’s writing desk, and looked at some of his cups and saucers (none of which matched, according to his preference for the individual in contradistinction to any collection or system), I appreciated again what Kierkegaard lived, worked, and died for. But visiting this museum exhibition with Jan made me keenly aware that in the conduct of my own life I made quite a different choice, or series of choices, than Kierkegaard did in his.

Had I been (or become) an American Kierkegaard, I would no doubt have produced, by now, a much larger output of creative and intellectual work than I can presently show for myself: one full-length play with music, 60 or 70 songs and other musical compositions, a hundred or so recorded saxophone performances, a handful rather than an armload of academic monographs (most unpublished), and one hefty dissertation (with limited audience appeal).

Had I devoted myself to an “authorship,” as SK did, what would I have today, in addition that body of work? No life’s partner. No children. No friends. Probably no saxophones. No former students. No money. No thanks.

The “existential” choices I made led to a different path—a shared path—not the path Kierkegaard walked alone. Nevertheless, the way I chose to live has demanded its own “purity of heart” and has yielded its own harvest of wisdom, fulfillment and “joyous suffering”—although, I admit, not too much solitariness and very little genius. My chosen path has led to ample and sometimes abundant love, occasional sacrifices, but no celebrity—and certainly no cross, either to bear or to wear!

Each day Jan and I were in Copenhagen I walked the city’s streets, as Kierkegaard himself did for two or three hours on most days of his life. It was touching to be walking alone in thought, seeing some of what my former intellectual hero must have seen, in much the same way as he must have seen it. But after a week of walking and reflecting in Copenhagen, I confess that the work of love, in my life, took me down a road somewhat more traveled. And that has made all the difference.

Who needed another “American Kierkegaard” anyway? Henry Thoreau had already played that role, and rather well indeed!

P.S. If you would like to read a little more about Kierkegaard, you could do worse than to start with a short essay by the late British writer and television commentator, Malcom Muggeridge (1903-1990): 
http://www.plough.com/en/articles/2010/january/the-oddest-prophet-søren-kierkegaard

England: Our English Spring

Jan and I had a wonderful time in England during the first weeks of April. I (Jim) first came to England in 1969 to attend the University of Bristol for a year. I know, only too well, just how inhospitable the “English spring” can be. Yet on this latest trip the sun shone on us every day.

I arrived from Chicago a day before Jan, and her mom Jo, arrived from Durham. The plan was for me to get a good night’s sleep in order to meet their flight at 7:00 AM, pick up a rental car, and drive us all down to Portsmouth, where Jan was to be one of the plenary speakers for the Lactation Consultants of Great Britain’s annual conference.

Everything "went to plan,” as the Brits say. Our flat in Gosport (a short ferry ride from Portsmouth) had to be changed to accommodate Jan’s walking difficulty. But—“no worries”—our hosts moved us to their other, six-bedroom, property. Here all the rooms we needed were on the ground floor (what they call the First Floor), and lots of others rooms we didn’t need were perched above, on the upper two floors of this converted dairy.

Jan could not believe that EVERYTHING went wrong with her technology in the UK. Minutes before she was to speak, her PowerPoint refused to load due to a corrupt file, and we had to go with an earlier version, on my computer. The same problem persisted on the second day, when I took Jo out for a tour of Portsmouth. The iPad (which we rely on for GPS), and sometimes our mobile phone, also failed to thrive! But—“no worries”—I saw most of Jan’s presentations at the LCGB conference, and they were very well received. In the end she had the largest turnout of all the speakers, and audiences (the full group was 140) seemed to be very engaged.

As Jan attended and presented lactation workshops, Jo and I investigated both the remarkable naval history of Portsmouth and the birthplace of Charles Dickens, where role-players brought his era to life. Jan’s conference was held at the John Pounds Centre. John Pounds, we learned, was a cobbler turned philanthropist, who sought to lift up the poor Portsmouth neighborhood into which he was born by establishing “ragged schools” for working class children. Dickens would have been proud!

In our travels around Portsmouth and Gosport, Jo and I toured the Besty Rose, King Henry VIII’s flagship (recently raised after 400 years on the sea bottom), Nelson’s flagship Victory (which carried its deceased captain/hero home from Trafalgar, pickled in a cask of brandy), a nineteenth-century iron warship (the HMS Warrior), and a twentieth-century submarine.

After Portsmouth the three of us moved west to Southampton. We toured nearby Manor Farm, which several years ago hosted a BBC team that documented the life of the British farmers who saved Britons from starvation or malnutrition during World War II by doubling the output of British agriculture.

This highly engaging program, Wartime Farm, has proved to be one of the BBC’s most surprisingly popular shows in recent years. In it, an historian and two archaeologists show what farm families did to return idle acreage to production and to improvise, economize, and revolutionize their way to victory on the home front. Jan and Jo and I thoroughly enjoyed watching every episode of this series, and we sent the DVDs home to our farmer son, Dave.

After emergency visits to the Apple and Vodafone stores at a fancy new shopping center in Southampton, we made our way to the Isle of Wight. I was especially touched to be here at age 64. Do you recall the lyrics of the Beatles’ tribute to what used to be the British retirement age? The song expresses the hope that one might afford to retire in this British version of paradise. We all came to appreciate the basis for this fond hope as Jan, Jo and I wandered the pastures, villages, and woodlands of this charming and historic island.

How delightful to find sunny, pleasant accommodation on a working farm! We took pleasure in the daily habits and forays of the sheep and lambs, pigs and llamas, ducks, geese, chickens and horses. I took a walk up a steep hill to survey the surrounding countryside from an obelisk marker placed in 1744. All of us enjoyed the thatch-roof houses in “our” village of Godshill, where we enjoyed a proper English “cream tea” our last afternoon there.

On Good Friday we drove back to London, where we saw The Book of Mormon. This award-winning show got mixed, but generally “thumbs-down,” reviews from us. The language was offensively salty, and the writers mocked both Mormon and Ugandan beliefs, even though, in the end, all the characters ended up better than they began. Jo loved the young male dancers. (“I’ve never seen more than one or two boys in a show before who could really dance. But every one of these boys was GREAT!”) I appreciated the production and score details, and was interested, as a student of religion and culture, in the plot and theme. Jan wished we had gone to Lion King!

Jo flew safely back home to Durham on Saturday, while Jan and I moved on to Copenhagen where this year’s European Lactation Consultants (ELACTA) conference will be held in a few days. We look forward to seeing two HUG friends there: Barb Glare from Australia, and Min-Sung from Korea. And we also look forward to seeing family and friends back in England, when we return there in June and July.